


side two, track two

by deadlybride



Series: double-groove vinyl [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, New Relationship, Post-Episode: s14e13 Lebanon, Season/Series 14
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-11
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-04-24 17:08:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,794
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19177711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deadlybride/pseuds/deadlybride
Summary: Dean goes and gets a motel room, like he said he would, and realizes that the pearl's gift came only later.





	side two, track two

**Author's Note:**

> A continuation of ‘side two, track one’ -- the thought wasn’t entirely complete, it felt like, so here’s a little fic-coda so it'll stop nagging at me.
> 
> A double-groove on vinyl allows hidden tracks to be recorded onto the record.

Somewhere on I-25 with the night curling up in misty frost against the windows, Sam falls asleep. Hardly anyone on the road, the occasional semi coming southbound to fill the Impala’s cabin with light. Anymore it’s hard for Dean to choose between trying to handle his crap alone and trying to distract himself, try to focus on anything else that isn’t the drumming thud of an archangel trying to break free of the barely adequate prison he’s making of himself. Feels most of the time like not splintering apart is about the best he can do. The road hums along below the tires and the engine’s rumbling up her usual steady growl, and he’s lost in thought when he realizes the tape ran out who knows how long ago, and he glances across the bench seat to find Sam tipped in, relaxed. He’s slumped down, his arms crossed over his belly, his knees bent toward Dean. His face is slack, soft.

Dean chews his lip, looks a minute longer. Absolutely no one on the road, can’t hurt anything. Sometimes when Sam’s sleeping he looks about ten years old—and what does that say, that it’s the first thing Dean thinks of?

His head hurts. He shifts, on the seat, drives. They said they were going to find a motel, and Dean’s going to, but as long as Sammy’s sleeping he’s got time to think, in the quiet. The almost-quiet. His passenger doesn’t stop rattling inside him, but he’s almost, sort of starting to get a handle on that. Feels—stronger, after today, after yesterday. Turns out there’s something he wants that’s greater than being free of a pissant, whiny archangel, and that all by itself is something that feels a little too big to get his arms around, without some quality road time.

Road rolls under the car, the world all black outside the halo of the headlights. Black fields, black hills. Dead grass barely lit to pale lifeless gold before it rolls out into nothing, until there’s white sparking back and there’s snow on the ground, and he finally gives in to the way his eyes are burning and pulls off for Casper and a motel he remembers that’s decent, or close enough for their purposes.

Freezing, here. North maybe wasn’t the right direction to pick, but he’d felt like a spinning compass, unmoored from any kind of magnet that wasn’t right there in the passenger seat. Here they are, anyway, and he rolls through the crunching snow into a black-ice parking lot, bright neon cutting blue and sharp over everything that reflects, nothing warm left. Alien planet.

He parks right in front of the lobby door and Sam finally wakes up when the engine cuts, starting bolt upright with a shocked breath through his teeth. “What,” he says, and Dean says, “Morning, princess,” and his voice is all road-gravel, unused. “Getting a room.”

Sam shakes his head, touches Dean’s jacket-sleeve, and Dean stops with his hand on the door handle, teeth sunk into the inside of his lip. “Jeez, it’s like—midnight?” Sam drags a hand down his face, eyebrows all a knot like he’s doing math problems. “Wyoming?”

“The Friendly Ghost,” Dean confirms, and Sam snorts, licks his lips, looks at him. “You want to get the room, or should I?”

“You,” Sam says, and sits back into his corner of the seat. The neon light slips over his hair, his skin, turns him blue-silver. His eyes, impossible to see. He bites his bottom lip, blue teeth, and the breath he takes puts an unavoidable beat before the smile he tries to put into his voice. “You can handle it, right?”

He rolls his eyes, even if Sam can’t see it, and makes sure to leave the door open enough for the zero-degree air to get all over all that blue skin before he slams it shut again. Like he doesn’t know it’s a test. They’ve been together long enough, he knows when Sam’s joshing him for real and when he’s covering for something. Even if sometimes he doesn’t know what he’s covering for. Even if, sometimes, there’s something real and blinding that’s right in front of both of them, and they just don’t see it. Well, fair enough, Dean thinks, stamping snow off his boots in the entryway. It was blinding. What did they expect.

When he comes out he’s got a butter mint tucked in his cheek and Sam’s pulling his coat on, standing shivering by the car flank. “Is frostbite one of your kinks?” Dean says, and Sam shakes his head, wrapping the coat around his skinny too-long torso, says, “What room?”

107, hardly far enough away to justify moving the car, but Dean does. Sam walks, for some reason, and so Dean’s alone again in the silent cabin, and he rolls the big black bulk of her over to sit in front of their room, and watches in the rearview as Sam’s narrow black shadow crosses the blue-white landscape. That neon sign is ridiculous, see-it-from-space big. Under the wash of it, there’s enough light for Sam to catch the room key when Dean tosses it to him, and Dean grabs their bags and lets Sam open up the door, and turn on the lamps, and in the bright gold triangle that spills out over the sidewalk Dean sees the second Sam clocks the king bed, and the sees too the look Sam sends back over his shoulder.

Bags on the table, and Dean rolls his shoulders. Fuck, he’s tired and wired at the same time. Nearly one in the morning and sleep wasn’t great the night before. Not that it ever is. Now, of course, there’s this.

“Yeah?” Sam says, closing the door behind them both. Dean blows out a long, chest-deflating breath, and when he turns Sam’s looking at him, shoulder against the door. He flicks the deadbolt closed, tosses the key onto the table past Dean’s hip. Doesn’t come closer. That cut’s still obvious, right across the bridge of his nose, the skin around his eye still purple-red. Doesn't look ten anymore, that's for sure. He's this—man. Familiar, except how he's not. Dean can still feel his hands, and if it was hard to think through in the huge empty night of driving, it's no easier with a closed door between them and anyone who could see, a big waiting mattress behind Dean's back. Sam frowns, lifts his chin. "Okay?"

Dean drops his head. "You keep asking that, like there's a good answer," he says, and he doesn't want to be looking at Sam's face when he says it. Still. Dean's the one who chose the damn room, chose the damn bed. Looked the clerk in the eye when he asked for it and saw how the guy didn't blink. Dean peels his jacket off, dumps it onto the pile of bags on the table, and it's just warm enough in here. Enough to block out the ice planet Hoth on the other side of the window. Not warm enough to prickle sweat in his hairline, on his back—Sam takes care of that, when he sways forward. Dean stays put, keeps his eyes open. He's making a choice. He made one. For Sammy, he's not going to go back on his word.

Sam puts his thumb on the scabbed-over cut on Dean's lip, tracks real careful down over the tender skin below it. His reflex is to cringe away, and for a split second he does, and then he stands still and lets Sam touch him. His body doesn't know what to do with this. Brain caught between _yes_ and _can't_ , and all his muscles and nerves trapped and tense. Sam's eyes jump from his mouth when he feels the flinch, but he doesn't pull back, either. A beat and there's a determined flex to his jaw, his fingers dragging along Dean's midnight o'clock shadow, pausing at the hinge there just below his ear before he steps forward, and Dean has to tip his head back to keep meeting his eyes. "I'm going to kiss you," Sam says, like it's just—information. There's a ghost in Biloxi, there's road work on I-10. Just so you know.

"It's not any less weird if you telegraph it, dude," Dean says, but he stays right where he is with his pulse hammering in what feels like the base of his gut. Sam shrugs, and tips down the three—four—however many inches, and it's the same utterly insane shocky burst of sensation it was that afternoon. Sam's familiar smell—hot breath—lips, and lips aren't all that different from person to person, Dean's kissed he doesn't even know how many people over his tangled up mess of a lifetime, and it shouldn't be anything new except for how it, fuck, is. Sam's fingers are long and hot and tip his jaw up, because for once in his life he has to tilt _up_ to kiss, and he drags in a breath and puts a hand on Sam's waist, a little ballast against how the whole universe seems to have spun off into a Dorothy-style tornado. They sure as shit aren't in Kansas anymore.

When Sam pulls back, he doesn't do it all at once. More information Dean probably didn't need, even if it's turning his bones to melting heavy gold to know it. Sam nibbles at Dean's lower lip, and it hurts but Dean only shivers for it, and his nose brushes Dean's, and he hangs there breathing in Dean's air, and when Dean opens his eyes Sam's right _there_ , still close and still tipping everything ass-over-teakettle. "Hm," Sam says, skating his fingers along Dean's hairline. "Still weird?"

"Uh, yeah," Dean says, in his absolute best _you dork_ tone, and his best is real good. Doesn't matter; Sam's mouth hitches up, dimples peeking, and Dean swallows because it's been—a long time. A long, long time, since they were pointed his way, and Sam seemed… happy. He licks his lips, tastes Sam. Shrugs, and squeezes Sam's waist where he hasn't been able to make himself let go. "Guess weird's okay with me."

"That's because you're a freak," Sam says, soft like it's a secret, and he actually grins for real when Dean shoves him, and—yeah. It's ridiculous, crazy, maybe the stupidest thing they ever did. Stupidest ain't the same as worst, though, and it turns out, somehow, it's not in Dean to regret it.

He takes a shower. "You're not invited," he says, just in case he needs to make it clear, and Sam raises his eyebrows but—there's a line, even in this. Too much, too soon. His head throbbing, fists pounding inside his skull. The shower's quick, anyway, and Dean's not up for the vagaries of wet neck-breaking sex with this little sleep under his belt. Motel bathtubs and easily detachable curtains and two big guys—no. Maybe, though. Back home. The shower room's big, and they've showered together there once or twice before, when both of them needed to get the monster-grime off right away. Not looking at each other, even in all that light, although—Dean wasn't looking, except how sometimes, sure, he'd catch a glimpse, and things got filed away in the back of his head. He never caught Sam doing the same, but it doesn't mean Sam wasn't doing it.

He comes out in his boxer-briefs still rubbing his hair dry, to find just one of the bedside lamps on and Sam sitting in a thin undershirt, pajama pants, braced on the side of the mattress. Waiting. Ain't that a kick in the teeth. "Answer a question for me," Dean says.

Sam frowns at him, even if his eyes sweep quick from top to bottom. "What?"

That look. Dean bites the inside of his cheek, tosses his towel over his shoulder to land—wherever. Sam huffs, and it's so their-whole-lives _Sammy_ that something clicks, settles. "Relax," Dean says, even though he knows that winds Sam up, and sure enough Sam's frown swoops lower and Dean rolls his eyes, even if he's biting back a smile. Can't let Sam know how endearing his pissy-face is. Wouldn't be nearly as satisfying to drag out, otherwise. Dean touches his shoulder, though, and the look fractures and dissolves, Sam looking up at him and the new thing between them hovers practically solid in the air.

Dean's too tired, though, and one revelation a day is maybe enough. Sam's fingers wrap around his wrist. "So," Dean says. "Sharing?"

Sam lifts a shoulder. "You're the one who got the king," he says, but he knows what Dean's asking. His mouth tilts, acknowledgment. The strangeness doesn't stop, even if they're looking at it head-on.

They climb into bed, and it's a big bed but they're big guys, and there's not as much space between them as Dean would've thought when he turns onto his side, curls his arm under his head. Sam mirrors him, and his knee bumps just under Dean's in the warm soft cave they're making, the snow heavy outside. Years, since they've shared a bed. More than a decade. "You remember—" Dean starts, and Sam grins before he can even finish it.

"That ghoul job in Kennewick," Sam says. "Man, that sucked."

It did, and hard. A spare room in a creepy house, and neither of them would take the floor because rats there were the least of the nasty crap that might've crawled out. Salt around the bed and they climbed in and fought for space, but it was warm, and they managed a few hours, kneeing each other and fighting for the blanket. Nothing fraught, like there is now, and even so they woke up pressed together, back to back. "Wasn't that bad," Dean says, now, and Sam's grin is softer, and his hand slips across the little space between them and touches Dean's arm.

"You kick, though," Sam says.

" _You_ kick," Dean says. "And you're a blanket hog."

"Says the human burrito." Sam shakes his head, but his hand circles around Dean's arm. "Yeah, no answer to that one."

"Not dignifying it with a response," Dean says, but he's—distracted.

Clamor, inside his head, and it must be visible somehow on his face because Sam's expression changes. God, Dean wishes he could be done with this. Then again—he tried wishing for that, and look where it got him. Sam's looking at him, right up close, and the soft jokey smiling's all gone now, a frown in its place. Dean sighs, pauses a moment. Envisions himself full up to the brim with cold iron, sigils carved in and burning like with holy fire. A solid, impenetrable thing, a prison of him. It works. The throbbing stops, and it's quiet, and he doesn't really realize he's closed his eyes until Sam's pulling at him, bringing him closer. Dean scoots in, and even through the pajamas Sam's body is a warm shock. He takes a deep breath, slow. Lets it out slower. Says, "I'm tired of this," and he didn't really mean to be honest, but if now's not the time—and Sam doesn't say anything, but he slides his arm around Dean's waist, and it's weird. It's so, so goddamn weird. No reason for it to feel as good as it does.

Heart's desire. That's what the pearl was supposed to do. Dean made a wish, in words, and it wasn't granted. He got something else—something crazy, mind-bending. He got the opportunity to make a choice and, more than that, to watch Sam make one. Thing is: Dean's answer was only ever going to be the one he gave. What a life they've had, that when Sam said the same, it didn't feel like a surprise as much as… _yes_. Of course. That old promise, offered and accepted, all over again.

"What was the question?" Sam says. Dean starts. He's drifting off, even with the lamp still on. Sam's warm all over his front, the weight of his arm heavy on Dean's side. "Dean? You were going to ask me a question."

"Yeah," Dean says, muzzy. He pushes in closer, tips his weight in. A hand on Sam's hip. Little anchors. The question already got an answer. At least, the answer that mattered. He shakes his head against the pillow, golden-dark seeping through his closed eyelids. "In the morning, Sammy."

A huff. "Sure," Dean hears, and then there's press of lips against his forehead. Barely there, brief and light as air, but it sinks down, anyway, right down into the too-full chamber of his chest. Could've been too much, but it turns out that for Sam there's always another inch.

 

**Author's Note:**

> [posted here on my tumblr if you'd like to reblog](https://zmediaoutlet.tumblr.com/post/185520215639/side-two-track-two)


End file.
